Supreme Court in 1916, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., blew the government’s brief out of the water. In a 7-to-2 decision the court tossed out the indictment against a Pittsburgh doctor who had sold a narcotics prescription to an addict, and a host of other doctors, druggists, and addicts who had already been convicted had to be turned loose. The Treasury Department lawyers scrambled to deal with this unexpected damage and immediately began agitating in Congress for additional legislation. In the short run, they managed to keep the medical profession in line through sheer intimidation. According to the Narcotics Division’s own numbers, they indicted some 35,000 people over the next couple of years without ever bringing the cases to court—thus terrorizing the medical profession into compliance without risking defeat at the hands of the judiciary.^[32]  Meanwhile, they went looking for a better case—something vividly outrageous that might change the minds of at least three judges on the High Court.

At a different moment in our history, this kind of rough-and-tumble federal intimidation might have been met with public outrage.  But in the second decade of the 20th century, the American people were going through a sea change in attitudes.  Among the major losers in this transformation would be the victims of drug addiction.  Back in 1900, the country had looked upon addicts as unfortunate citizens with a medical problem.  By 1920, they had become “drug fiends,” twisted, immoral, untrustworthy.  Like vampires, they infected everything they touched.  There was no room for compassion here.  The only way to get rid of a vampire is to drive a stake through his heart.

This image—the Drug Addict as Vampire—was to become a driving force in the public mind and the origin of this powerful symbolism can be traced to a single individual, Spanish-American war hero Richmond Pearson Hobson.  At one time, Captain Hobson, “the Hero of Santiago,” was the highest paid lecturer in America, and after each of his public appearances the women in the audience would line up to kiss the dashing young naval officer.  He was known as “the most kissed man in